Japan quake: Latest updates

00:59am: Police raise death toll from Japanese quake, tsunami to 40, with 39 missing.

12:36am: Chile's president has called on the country to remain calm and go about business as usual despite a tsunami alert that applies to the entire Pacific coast of the Americas after the 8.9-magnitude quake in Japan.

The tsunami was expected to hit at least 20 countries around the Pacific Rim, including the entire West Coast of the Americas, from Alaska to Antarctica.

President Sebastian Pinera says Chilean emergency officials will issue reports throughout the day to keep the public informed of the danger, and there will be enough time to evacuate if necessary.

12:15am: Japan issues state of emergency at nuke plant after cooling system failure but there was no radiation leak.

11:45pm: Taiwan's central weather bureau said on Friday minor tsunamis set off by a massive quake in Japan reached Taiwan's coastline without causing any damage.

11.35pm: Russian authorities have evacuated some 11,000 residents from coastal areas on Pacific islands before they were hit by the tsunami waves.

The regional emergency officials said that the waves reached several towns and villages on the Kurils, four Pacific islands that the Soviet Union seized from Japan in the final days of the World War II, but caused no damage. The islands lie as close as six miles from Japan's Hokkaido island.
A three-metre wave reached the village of Malokurilskoye and some other villages recorded lower water levels, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said. There were no immediate reports of damage.

10.57pm: A tsunami warning has been expanded to include parts of the western US coast.
The Tsunami Warning Centre in Alaska says the warning is in effect from Point Concepcion in central California to the Oregon-Washington border and parts of southern Alaska.
Warnings were issued for Hawaii and other parts of the Pacific following a tsunami early Friday after a massive earthquake struck in Japan.

10.40pm: Tsunami warnings have now been issued for parts of California, Oregon and Alaska. Tsunami waves are forecast to hit the shores of Taiwan about now. They are forecast to reach a maximum height of 1 metre.

10.17pm: The death toll from the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake has reached 19. The dead include a 67-year-old man crushed by a wall and an elderly woman killed by a fallen roof, both in the wider Tokyo area, foreign media reports said. Three were crushed to death when their houses collapsed in Ibaraki prefecture, northeast of Tokyo. The National Police Agency, charged with compiling nationwide data on natural disasters, could not immediately confirm the figures.
"The damage is so enormous that it will take us much time to gather data," an official at the agency said.

10.12pm: Japan's Bullet train service to northern Japan has been halted, as have rapid transit in Tokyo and some nuclear power plants automatically shut down, the BBC has reported. Prime Minister Naoto Kan said there had been no radiation leaks.

9.52pmAt least five people have been reported dead in Fukushima province, and many are feared buried in rubble after a hotel collapses in northern city Sendai, reports Reuters.

9.42pm: The car park at Tokyo Disneyland was drenched with water-logged segments from the ground following the 8.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked Japan's Pacific coast Friday, police said.
It was earlier reported that a tsunami might have caused the inundation but police said the phenomenon was due to liquefaction of soil caused by the intense shaking of the tremor.
There were 69,000 people at the Disneyland and the adjacent Tokyo Disney Sea, built on a landfill in Tokyo Bay, when the quake occurred, a spokesman at the local Urawa police station said.
There were no injuries or property damage reported at the theme parks, he told AFP.
"The visitors have been evacuated to safe places but there are many puddles due to liquefaction around the theme parks," he said.

9.27pm: Three people were reported killed when a huge earthquake of magnitude 8.9 rocked Japan and tsunamis up to 10 metres high slammed into the coast on Friday.
The dead included a 67-year-old man crushed by a wall and an elderly woman killed by a fallen roof, both in the wider Tokyo area.

9.16pm: Philippine officials are ordering an evacuation of coastal communities along the country's eastern seaboard in expectation of a tsunami following a 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan.
Philippine Volcanology and Seismology Institute director Renato Solidum says the first one metre high waves are expected to hit the northernmost Batanes islands by 5 p.m. (09:00 GMT) Friday.
Disaster management officials in Albay province southeast of Manila say they have ordered residents to move to designated evacuation sites that are at least 5 metres above sea level.

8.54pm: The US tsunami monitoring centre has widened a warning to virtually the entire Pacific coast, including New Zealand, Australia and South America, after a massive earthquake in Japan.

8.34pm: The first death has been reported in an area east of Tokyo after a major earthquake in Japan, according to Jiji Press.

8.23pm: The AFP news agency reports the powerful earthquake was felt as far away as the Chinese capital of Beijing, 2,500 kilometres to the west, residents said.
Workers in some office towers reported via chat sites that they had clearly felt the tremor, although no injuries or damage was immediately reported.
The China Earthquake Administration said it had received reports from residents across the city who also claimed to have felt it.
Japan issued its top tsunami warning after the quake hit.

8.10pm: Civil Defence have confirmed there is a threat of a tsunami to New Zealand, but the threat is still 10 hours away. They will be monitoring the threat through the night.

8.09pm: A second 7.1 earthquake has reportedly struck off Japan's northeastern coast.